Diplodocus carnegii

Hatcher, 1901
Originals : CM 84 et CM 94. 1908-18 MNHN.F.AMN164
Reptilia, Dinosauria, Saurischia, Sauropoda
Upper Jurassic, 152 million years
The Morrison Formation, Wyoming, USA

This fossil is a cast which was offered by American millionaire philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to Armand Fallières, President of the French Republic. The original fossil skeleton, known as “Dippy”, is housed in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh (USA). It was mounted using bones from several specimens, all discovered in the famous Morrison Formation in Wyoming, which dates to the Upper Jurassic. At the beginning of the last century, Andrew Carnegie funded the creation of about 10 casts, which were donated to several museums scattered around the world. The Paris specimen was the third assembled in Europe, in 1908, after those in London and Berlin. The Paris specimen was the third assembled in Europe, in 1908, after those in London and Berlin.

Diplodocus was a large sauropod dinosaur of the end of the Jurassic. Measuring around 25 m in length and weighing up to 15 tonnes, it possessed a very long neck and tail. The latter is made up of 80 vertebrae. The animal’s massive body was supported on four sturdy legs, one of the characteristics specific to these dinosaurs. Its small, cylindrical teeth allowed it to “rake up” the plants that it fed on, namely ferns and conifers under 3 m in height.

Its name comes from the Greek diplos meaning “double”, and dokos meaning “beam”: the chevrons, the bones underneath the tail vertebrae, are in fact double.